All posts tagged ‘nerd’

Image from Flickr photo stream NicoCanali used with permission under CC license

1) Pi is one of the coolest (and most used) mathematical constants there is. It first arrived in written word on 1900-1600BC Babylonian clay tablets, where pi was estimated to be 23/8≈3.1250.

Pi(π) is defined as the ratio of a circles circumference C to its diameter d. This means that no matter the size of the circle the ratio will never change. However, this definition is only valid in 2-dimensional Euclidean geometry. A second definition was created to describe pi in a more universal manner, pi is twice the smallest positive x for which cos(x)=0.

Pi is an irrational number, meaning it can never be written as the ratio of two integers. The most commonly known fractional equivalent of pi, 22/7, is only accurate to two decimal places of the actual pi value. Since pi is irrational, it has an infinite number of digits in its decimal state, and will never end in a repeating pattern of numbers.

Pi is a transcendental number. Pi as a number is not algebraic, it cannot be the root of a non-zero polynomial equation with rational coefficients.

The digits of pi actually pass statistical randomness tests, there is no pattern whatsoever.

2) Geeks and nerds the world around have iconized this mathematical symbol to the point of cultdom. Pi has been immortalized on t-shirts, jewelry, through parades, secret handshakes, inside jokes, Google doodles, college pep rally chants, and memorization competitions.

There are likely as many versions of geeky pi t-shirts as there are digits in pi itself (see caption above).

Did you know that San Francisco holds a Pi Day parade every March the 14th? This parade will have 500 digits… I mean people marching down the Embarcadero to the Pi Shrine. The Pi Shrine is a one foot diameter gold plate engraved with the first 108 digits of pi.

When you are out and about on Pi Day, give someone a “High Pi” instead of a high five. It’s similar to a high five, but uses only three fingers instead of five.

If you ever attended or dream of attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), you will likely learn cheers that are a bit different from those that other schools learn.

I’m a Beaver, you’re a Beaver, we are Beavers all.
And when we get together, we do the Beaver call.
E to the U du dx,
E to the X dx.
Cosine, secant, tangent, sine, 3.14159.
Integral radical mu dv
Slipstick, sliderule, MIT.
Go Tech!

3) You are encouraged to eat pi in all of its forms: fruit pie, meat pie, pizza pie, creme pie, egg pie…. you get the idea, Eat PIE! There is a pie for everyone!

Bonus) Poetry! There are poets who have coined an entirely new form of poetry in the for of pi-related haiku called pi-ku. However my favorite will always be the pi limericks, I’ll leave you with one, but add your own pi poetry to the comments!

I don’t need to prove my geek cred to anyone. Neither do you. In fact, the idea that we need to prove anything about how we self-identify is ridiculous. If I see myself as a geek because I like (insert topic here) then that should be good enough. It’s not like calling yourself a doctor because you think stethoscopes are neat and then attempting open heart surgery. No life hangs in the balance. It’s just an identifier, a description, something as easy to break out as saying you’re tall, or introverted or forgetful. So why does it garner such passionate debate when some who’ve embraced the label claim it is being used unfairly by others?

It happens every few months, usually because someone has written an article about geeks, or labeled themselves as a geek. There is intense Internet debate, usually a good bit of it leaning toward the nasty, as “real” geeks try to explain why the term was unfairly used, why it was undeserved, why it should be given back to those who own it. As if anyone can own a word. You can buy a vowel on Wheel of Fortune, but that’s a game show. You can’t own a word in the real world.

I have been calling myself a geek and a nerd for years. Yeah, comparing those two terms alone is probably a doctoral thesis in the making, but that’s not the point. I think I’m a geek. I think I’m a nerd. Not everyone I meet might agree with me. I don’t wear lots of geeky shirts. I don’t like argyle socks. I love games but am a terrible gamer. I don’t like Lord of the Rings. I am still a geek.

I think that some of the problem comes from what has defined the word geek for so many years. Not the guy biting the head off of a chicken in a circus freak show, but the way those of a certain age had the label applied to them in a none too complimentary way when they were younger. It still happens now. There are times when being called a geek or labeling yourself as one is just fine, and maybe even, dare I say it, cool. But there are still times when it’s used to call someone out as different and not fitting in with the crowd.

But the cool factor, the acceptability, the marketability of the word is still new. The guys who tinkered around with computers in the 80′s, who were aces at Tempest in the arcades and had scientific calculators in their back pockets lived through a time when geek was an insult and never, ever a compliment. This goes for women, too. It was not cool to hang out at the comic store, recite lines from Star Wars or read Tolkien. You were a geek, and by definition you were an outcast.

Clearly, the word has changed over the years. It’s come to mean many things to many people. It is still at times used as an insult, but just as often it’s used as a point of pride. Calling yourself a geek shows that you are proud of who you are and your passions. It shows you are part of a group that generally, is accepting of others because most geeks have at some time felt like an outcast. But, hasn’t everyone felt like an outcast at some time? Hasn’t everyone, from the football fanatic to the comic book collector wished that people understood them better? Yes, I’m going to have to say yes.

So, when someone you don’t think deserves the label geek uses it, just leave it alone. Articles like this one in Forbes calling out fake geek girls are just ridiculous. Sure, geek is having it’s heyday right now and people will use the word however they choose. Sometimes because they genuinely identify with it, and sometimes because they think it may garner them positive attention. Truly, it doesn’t matter. The meaning of the word will continue to change as how we identify ourselves changes.

Nerds are different from the general population. We know this, because we live this. Many of us have tales of woe, how being nerdy has caused problems getting dates, or communicating with a significant other. But we nerds are special. Our unique qualities should be celebrated by those who love us.

Jules Sherred, of GeekMom fame—and fame from her countless other endeavors—and her partner Andrew are currently working on a book called Nerd Love, which will tackle the subject of nerd dating and nerd relationships. Even those of us already in nicely nerdy relationships still need help every once in a while. Nerd Love will be written by nerds, for nerds. It will be done in an interesting way, however. The edits for each chapter will be crowdsourced, posted on the Nerd Love site for people to copyedit, suggest ways to cut or expand on topics, etc. Any editors whose edits get used will be credited in the final book. When the book is complete, there will be an IndieGoGo campaign to help with the illustrations and publication.

In addition to book chapters, Nerd Love will also have podcasts, such as the recent fascinating one that Jules and Andrew did about sex. Feedback on those is also being solicited. And Jules and Andrew will blog on the Nerd Love website about love, sex, and relationships.

The only way this will all work is to get community involvement, so we’re asking all of you, and all of the nerds you know, to participate. A great place to get started is to visit the Ask Nerd Love site. It’s a safe place for nerds to ask any love, sex, or relationship questions. Though you do need to create an account to ask a question, you don’t have to give your real name, so this can be done anonymously. Anyone can then answer questions, giving their personal thoughts, opinions, and experiences. Some of the questions and answers that are posted on the site may be worked in the book. Again, if they are, the person will receive credit in the book, with their permission. But if the question is asked anonymously, the credit will go to “Anonymous” as well.

In addition to all of the above, Jules and Andrew really want to hear other people’s personal Nerd Love stories. How did you find your nerdy significant other? Did you have a nerdy marriage proposal? How have you found nerdy people to date?

If there is one debate that I do not understand, despite my best efforts to wrap my brain around it, it is the “Do geek girls exist/ Can pretty girls be geeks?” debate.

Normally, I will watch this debate occur on various blogs and Twitter, try my best to consider it from all sides, then shake my head in bewilderment and conclude that I must be from another planet, as the ideas are beyond foreign to me.

In my mind, this debate reminds me a lot of high school. Then the title of Miss USA was awarded this week to someone who is a self-proclaimed science and history nerd and the resulting discussion on Twitter left my blood boiling.

I think it is important to give you my frame of reference in this debate, as we each have our own experiences that have helped to outline the nerds and geeks we have grown up to be.

I was born a nerd.

There was no coming out of the nerd/geek closet. My earliest memories involve organizing all of my books according to the Dewey Decimal System, spending hours pouring over non-fiction and learning every thing I could about anything, geeking-out over science fiction television and more. For most of my childhood and adolescence, I was the lone nerd/geek in my group of peers and they always just accepted it. They did not tease me for it because it was just who I was. They found other things to tease me over, such as the fact I was poor. On the other hand, my family was a different matter. Some still find it “cute” that I more than adore all things Star Trek, as if it is a childhood phase you are suppose to outgrow.

Despite not having acceptance from my family and not having a peer group with similar interests, I never longed to “fit in” nor did I strive to have geekdom be something that is accepted. I just wanted to be accepted as a person, nothing more or less. However, I do understand that is not the norm and most people want to feel as if they are part of a larger group and spend many years either fighting for this acceptance or going into the geek closet due to fear of retribution.

As I got older and found more of “my kind”, I never had to prove anything to my male peers. Sure my sex is female, my gender is questionable and some would consider me attractive, but my actions and who I am are telltale signs that I have geek cred. Have men discriminated again me? Sure, but never when it came to being a nerd/geek.

When it came to females, my experiences have been the opposite. More times than not, I’ve had to elbow my way into any female group and go through some sort of trial phase, for both things geeky and non-geeky. This trial phase normally ends with my rejection from the tribe for things, such as I’m not feminine enough, I’m not feminist enough, I don’t share the same interests, I’m too outspoken and too honest, I’m too intelligent, and the list goes on. Acceptance among women has been difficult to achieve, but as I have acceptance elsewhere, I shrug it off and spend time where the whole is appreciated, because at least I have that.

Also, as I grew up, I received two messages, from family, that made it very difficult to later accept that I may be attractive.

The first message was that it was a good thing my sister was attractive because she wasn’t going to succeed on her intelligence or lack thereof. The second message was that it was a good thing that I was intelligent because my looks were not going to get me anywhere. So when I read that Miss USA, Alyssa Campanella, shows signs of real intelligence and labels herself a history and science geek, I was exceedingly happy. That was until I saw the discussion on Twitter.

What kind of message does this send to both our young girls and young boys? Do we really want to continue with the message that you must choose between beauty and intelligence?

I don’t care what Miss USA wants to label herself as. Bottom line, she is willing, wanting and able to talk about subjects, in an intelligent and well-thought-out fashion; subjects that are considered hot button and political topics in the US, such as creationism vs evolution, pornography, gay marriage and marijuana. When one of the front runners for the Republican party’s presidential nomination states that Intelligent Design and Evolution have equal scientific credibility, a country needs all the reasoned voices it can get.

It appears that because she is beautiful and perfectly made-up, her statements are not to be taken credibility. Why? Because sex sells? Yes, sex does sell and it can be an unfortunate circumstance. That is another issue and debate that is not going to get solved overnight. But while we are having that debate and trying to solve that issue, why are we penalizing those who have a pretty face? Do you want your attractive child passing up a career in science, technology, beauty or both because the message they are getting from society tells them they have to choose between beauty and brains? Yes, the track record for intelligence in beauty pageants has not been the best. Miss Teen USA 2007 South Carolina contestant is a good example of this. But beauty and brains do exist and we should be celebrating when it shows up in the mainstream.

For years, nerds and geeks have been fighting for acceptance. Now that we are finally getting it, some are being no better than the bullies by demanding some type of proof. I don’t understand why. It isn’t as if this is going to take away from our ability to enjoy the things we geek and nerd-out about. In fact, quite the opposite will happen. The more there are people who are willing to openly embrace the things we love, the more they will be available.

Sometimes, I see this issue as having some parallels with the gay marriage question. Those who oppose gay marriage will state things such as, “Allowing homosexuals to marry will destroy the family and the institution of marriage.” The reality is, allowing gays to marry will not prevent straight people from getting married. Nobody loses anything. Now, I’d say the gay marriage issue is one that is truly important because people who are homosexual are being denied many rights and benefits. What rights and benefits do the geek culture stand to lose by people embracing us and wanting to identity with us? Nothing. What do we have to gain? More accessibility and greater diversity.

If there is one thing the geek culture claims to love about itself is that we are an extremely diverse group of people. We come from all backgrounds. We come in different shapes and sizes. We have different sexual orientations and gender identities. Our interests are as numerous as there are stars in the sky. So why are we still stuck in high school and having this debate? Why are we not doing what we longed for as children: Embracing those who want to take part in our activities with open arms and acceptance.

I for one welcome Miss USA into the fold. I also look forward to having someone who may just turn out to be a science ambassador, allowing other young girls who like to pretty themselves up, do so whilst also dreaming and thinking about science, technology, history and global issues.

I don’t have a daughter, but I do have a 12-year-old niece and I want her to grow up in a world that allows her to be both beautiful and intelligent. What do you want for your children?